The Romanoffs Recap: Mocking a Murderer

The Romanoffs

The Royal We

Flavor 1 Episode 2

Editor's Rating 3 stars

The Romanoffs

The Purple We

Flavour 1 Episode 2

Editor'due south Rating three stars

Photo: Jan Thijs/Amazon Prime Video

Two episodes in is too early to gamble a guess as to what ties Matthew Weiner's album series The Romanoffs together. But at that place'southward no advantage without risk, right? And so here goes. Based on "The Violet Hour" and its followup, "The Regal We," The Romanoffs might be so titled not just because its lead characters share beginnings with slain Russian royalty, but because they have null else to share. Both episodes characteristic combative protagonists as hollow equally Anastasia La Charnay'southward Fabergé egg; the drama, and in this episode's case in particular the comedy, arises from what they choose to make full that egg with.

This time effectually, Kerry Bishé and Corey Stoll star as Shelley and Michael Romanoff, an inertly married normie couple living in the American suburbs. When nosotros encounter them they're already in therapy, by and large due to Michael'southward lack of interest in doing annihilation with his wife, or on his own for that affair. Figuring she might as well get some good utilise out of his family name (her ain heritage is "Scottish, Irish gaelic, whatever, who gives a shit"), the ebullient and optimistic Shelley books them passage on a cruise for Romanov descendants.

Then Michael meets a stunning British expat and ex-ballerina named Michelle (Janet Montgomery) during jury duty for a murder trial, one in which the adult female conspicuously takes a gleefully, even erotically, morbid interest. Driven to distraction — she follows the prosecution'southward instance past taking meticulous notes; his own consist of the words "dirtbag" to depict the defendant, "Old Crow" to remember the name of the alcohol he got wasted on the night he murdered the hell out of an old adult female, and a drawing of Michelle'southward pes in a loftier-heeled shoe — Michael does the merely matter a reasonable person under his circumstances tin do: grind the deliberations of this open up-and-shut case to a multi-mean solar day halt so that Shelley'south forced to proceed the cruise without him and he tin can have the long weekend to pursue Michelle on his own.

Absolutely, he does this with some skill, or at least with more skill than he shows when drawing her feet on his notepad. He playacts the concerned citizen well in the jury room, and plays off Michelle'due south true-crime passion past staging an unauthorized expedition to the scene of the criminal offence, then booking information technology from the edifice every bit if he's been spotted and needs to brand a fast getaway. They wind up slow-dancing to the Cowboy Junkies' version of "Sweet Jane" in the bar where the killer got loaded before the murder. (Corey Stoll's big awkward white-guy attempts to dance in a sexy manner are a scream, right down to the fashion he looks over his shoulder at one bespeak and nods as if to apologize for the display to the bar's, like, two other patrons.) They accept their tryst in the family lakehouse to which Shelley earlier said he never likes going, and he fifty-fifty sprinkles in a dom/sub roleplay dynamic to make it interesting, though his lack of delivery to the bit requires Michelle to take accuse when he wavers. ("No. Finish it." "…really?")

While Michael is cosplaying 12 Aroused Men to go far the pants of ane lovely woman, Shelley is participating in cosplay that's even more literal. The (by and large elderly and goofy) Romanov descendants on the cruise stage an elaborate ball, consummate with a live horse and a cringe-inducing skit in which the Czar and Czarina, their family, and the mad monk Rasputin are played past little people. (Joffrey Baratheon, call your lawyer.) The romance she strikes up with another cruisegoer who married into the line, played by Noah Wyle, is based in large part on their shared realization that their existent lives with their Romanov spouses are also basically a mummer's farce. "I idea we were there to work on our problems," she says of her fourth dimension in couples therapy with Michael. "Then I wondered if nosotros were in that location for his problem. And now I realize that I'm there for my  problem, which might be him."

Even so even so, she can't become through with cheating on him, seeming to take her initial attempt to get into the wrong room as a sign that this wasn't meant to be. "I'yard a basically happy person," she'd said earlier; she has an integral cadre that alleviates the need to catch ahold of the start interesting thing she sees and say this, this is me at present, this is what I want and this is who I am.

Not so with Michael. If annihilation, this dork is but a strip mall outlet-store version of Anastasia La Charnay from the pilot episode. With no real distinguishing characteristics autonomously from his heritage, he as well is a personality void, only instead of filling that void with racism and misanthropy he fills information technology with…well, with nix. Equally nosotros learn in the couples therapy scene that opens the episode, it's non just that he has no shared interests with Shelley — he has no interests at all. He resents the time he has to spend at his task, running the exam-prep company he and his wife own. He apparently sorts his students into ane of 2 categories: "dumbshit or hardon." His sole pastime is playing one of those countless smartphone-app games — and not even, like, Angry Birds or Animal Crossing or freaking Subway Racers or something that might bring him into some kind of commonality with his boyfriend human beings slash smartphone-app gamers.

Yes, he sobs to the couples therapist about how he'd rather dice than live without "someone to actually know me." But what is at that place to know? When it becomes clear Michelle is a murderino, he becomes one. When she gets upward to dance, he dances. He susses out that she'southward into power exchange as a sex thing, but again, it's her kink, not his. Fifty-fifty smoking cigarettes and talking almost his Romanov ancestry, the two things he does to strike upwards an initial chat with her, are actually Shelley's interests, not his. What does he really see in Michelle? A sexy adult female who isn't his wife. Wow, how exciting for him!

When his interest in Michelle starts tipping over into murderous obsession, we see he has no idea what that's nearly, either. Like he's no incertitude seen in the movies, he sets upwards 1 last rendezvous with her past calling from a convenience-store parking lot, but because this is 2018 he uses his own cellphone and not the anonymizing payphones best suited for such a affair. When she breaks things of with him for adept and leaves, he meticulously wipes downward his motorcar for evidence of her presence, despite the fact that a) she'southward non involved in the plot, and b) there's no demand to scrub his ain car down if he's gonna observe some way to murder his wife outdoors, and c) convenience-shop parking lots have security cameras.

Then there's the murder effort itself, which is like watching ho-hum-motion footage of 2 outfielders crashing into each other to catch a high wing ball. He gets then winded during the hike up to the peak of the trail from which he intends to push her that I suspected he might keel over and fall off the ledge himself. Working up the courage to really endeavor to kill her is probably the well-nigh attention he's e'er paid to anything in his life, but he never bothers to figure out if the fall would exist fatal. When she (thankfully, hilariously, furiously) survives, his responses to her outrage are a joke unto themselves. He either slipped, or he didn't practise anything, or he's been actually crazy lately, or he just gainsays her. (Her, shouting: "You tried to fucking kill me!" Him, with the tone of a little kid going "nuh-uh": "I didn't.") I really can't remember the concluding time I enjoyed watching someone get their physical comeuppance as much as when Shelley maces him, knees him in the balls, peels out of there, and leaves him babble on the pavement. He deserves it for trying to murder her, only he also deserves it for just sucking really hard.

The whole shebang is a terrific showcase for the comic talents of Stoll and, especially, Bishé, whose reaction-shot confront game has been peerless ever since she spent Halt and Grab Fire watching the antics of the show'south less grounded computer geniuses with bemused horror. There'due south a keen bit in particular later Shelley gets abode from the cruise and Michael returns from the final day of deliberations. He looks miserable the 2nd he walks in, and her face falls the moment she hears him walk in the door. But by the fourth dimension they really come up face to face they're both effulgent with utterly artificial joy to see each other. They hug, and we get a smashing expect at Shelley'due south face resting on his shoulder every bit she says "I really missed you lot." Her vox sounds sincere, but her eyes look as if she merely discovered the family dog isn't quite as housebroken as previously believed.

That, I recall, is the takeaway from this episode, rather than the smile of empowerment that somewhen breaks beyond Shelley's face like sunshine as she drives away with Cake's version of "I Volition Survive" playing on the motorcar stereo. It's funny to see assholes exist recognized as such, and made to suffer for information technology. Wasn't this the logic behind then many of the pitfalls and pratfalls that befell Mad Men's hapless shithead-in-chief, Pete Campbell, at least when Weiner and company weren't utilizing him to examine what information technology'southward like to have so much handed to y'all and notwithstanding feel like, equally Pete says at ane point, y'all have nothing at all?

The Romanoffs Recap: Mocking a Murderer